Monday, January 12, 2015

A Nice Cup of Tea (1946)

On
this day in 1946, the British newspaper the Evening
Standard published a short piece by the writer George Orwell (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four.) Orwell’s topic on this occasion was on a far
less confronting topic than were most of his writings, and one especially dear
to the post-war English heart – it was about ‘a nice cup of tea.’

A
Nice Cup of Tea.

If you
look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably
find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy
instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.

This is curious, not only
because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well
as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it
is the subject of violent disputes.

When I look through my own
recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding
points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at
least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules,
every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use
Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be
despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk —
but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver
or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting
phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small
quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless,
while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The
teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware
teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously
enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed
beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual
method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be
strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to
the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of
rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the
week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak
ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a
little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in
the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put
straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to
imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little
dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are
supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in
considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in
the pot it never infuses properly.

Sixthly, one should take the
teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be
actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep
it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use
water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed
that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea,
one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards
allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of
a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat,
shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's
tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

Ninthly, one should pour the cream
off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives
tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, one should pour tea into
the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed
in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on
the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong
arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is
that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can
exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too
much milk if one does it the other way round.

Lastly, tea — unless one is
drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar.
I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call
yourself a true tea lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by
putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or
salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If
you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting
the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in
plain hot water.

Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they
only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to
take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking
tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you
will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

These are not the only
controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are
sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also
the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered
vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written
about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting
the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the
carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and
using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of
one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled,
ought to represent.

As the recipe for the day, I give
you a nice, simple tea cake from an Australian newspaper of the time:

P.S. In case you have
forgotten, today is also ‘Plough Monday’ – the first Monday
after Twelfth Day, and the traditional day for farm workers to return to their
labours. I wrote a brief post outlining some of the traditions of the day a
couple of years ago, here.